Oakland Athletics’ Prospect Update: Pitcher Casey Meisner
The Oakland Athletics acquired their now No. 11 prospect Casey Meisner from the New York Mets in the Tyler Clippard trade that took place this past July. Meisner is a tall, lean right handed pitcher, who stands 6’-7” on the mound and definitely has some talent. The Mets drafted Meisner in 2013 in the third round straight of high school. When the A’s acquired Meisner, Evan Giddings from the Swingin’ A’s staff wrote a prospect profile for this young potential star. With the 2015 Minor League season now over, let’s take a look at how he has been doing since joining the Athletics organization.
While in the Met’s Minor League system this year, Meisner was promoted from Single-A to Advanced-A. So, when he joined the A’s farm system, Meisner joined Oakland’s High-A team the Stockton Ports. With the Ports, he had a pretty successful second half of the Minor League season.
Meisner had a 3-1 record and made seven starts with Stockton. He had a 2.78 ERA over 32.1 innings pitched which is very comparable to his performance with the Met’s Advanced-A team where he had a 2.83 ERA over 35 innings pitched. Additionally, he only allowed one home run while with the Ports and had a 1.05 WHIP.
There was some concern when his strikeouts per nine innings dropped when he first moved from Single-A to Advanced-A ball. However, he was able to bring that number back up from 5.9 to 6.7 with Stockton. Additionally, he walked considerable less batters with his new team. He only walked 7 when pitching for the Ports while he walked 14 with the New York’s St. Lucie Mets and 19 with the Savannah Sand Gnats.
It is good to see that he is improving and taking on each new challenge with stride. Meisner has taken big steps forward this season and will hopefully continue to grow with the A’s. He is expected to be a future ace and could be very valuable as he continues to improve his secondary pitches. Meisner is only 20 years old and it is projected that he will not break into the Majors until at least 2018. But, make sure to remember his name because he will probably make a big impact on the Oakland Athletics’ starting rotation when he is finally called up.